WEEK IN MOVIES

Tom Hanks stars as an Amer­i­can lawyer de­fend­ing a Rus­sian spy on trea­son charges as US-Soviet re­la­tions es­ca­late to­wards the Cold War’s no-go zone. A highly im­mer­sive drama that res­onates strongly on both an in­ti­mately per­sonal level — thanks to the po­tent screen chem­istry of Hanks and co-star Mark Ry­lance as his de­spised client — and on a wider, po­lit­i­cal-his­tor­i­cal scale. Yet another classy his­tory les­son from mas­ter film­maker Steven Spiel­berg.

MON­DAY SALT 8.30PM, TDT ★★★

So what if Tom Cruise fa­mously walked from this big­bud­get spy thriller? What Salt does have work­ing in its favour – and boy, does she work hard through­out – is An­gelina Jolie (above). De­ploy­ing both sheer grit and con­sid­er­able phys­i­cal­ity, the star of the show takes Salt to a level that Cruise would not have been ca­pa­ble of. Jolie plays Eve­lyn Salt, a longserv­ing CIA agent who comes un­der sus­pi­cion of be­ing a Rus­sian op­er­a­tive. This is an ex­cit­ing run-gun-and-stun af­fair that does what a post-Bourne espionage out­ing should: with a min­i­mum of fuss and a max­i­mum dose of adrenalin.

WED­NES­DAY GONE GIRL 9PM, WIN ★★★★

An en­ter­tain­ingly provoca­tive film, bound to set tongues wag­ging and minds rac­ing for some time to come. Nick (Ben Af­fleck) ar­rives home to dis­cover that his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has dis­ap­peared. Oddly, Nick doesn’t seem all that flus­tered. Nev­er­the­less, he calls the cops. His mea­sured re­sponses to the en­su­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion (and the fin­ger­point­ing fury of a bay­ing US me­dia) form one half of the nar­ra­tive voice of Gone Girl. The other half comes from Amy her­self, via a di­ary she had been keep­ing.

caught in a fish­ing trap, a dol­phin named Win­ter loses its tail­fin. En­ter 11-year-old Sawyer (Nathan Gam­ble), who comes up with an idea that will save Win­ter from a life of cap­tiv­ity. A nice lit­tle out­ing for young na­ture en­thu­si­asts, even if the per­for­mances are stilted. Ver­dict: Who’s up for a lit­tle game of Pin the Tail on the Dol­phin?

FRI­DAY ZERO DARK THIRTY 9.25PM, SBS ★★★★★

From the mak­ers of The Hurt Locker, a sear­ing, chal­leng­ing fac­tual drama all about look­ing for a nee­dle in a haystack. The US gov­ern­ment is in pos­ses­sion of ev­ery last de­tail worth know­ing about the nee­dle: Osama bin Laden, the most ef­fec­tive ter­ror­ist in his­tory. The prob­lem is that no one knows where the haystack might be. It will take the CIA the best part of a decade to work it out. And then ex­actly 25 min­utes to elim­i­nate their tar­get once they do. As a blast from our re­cent past – re­ported quite clin­i­cally and de­cid­edly pow­er­fully in the present tense – Zero Dark Thirty does not un­der­charge the ex­plo­sive na­ture of its sub­ject mat­ter. Stars Jessica Chas­tain.

SATUR­DAY HO­TEL RWANDA 8.30PM, SBS ★★★★

Dur­ing the hor­rific Rwan­dan geno­cide of 1994, a re­source­ful ho­tel man­ager shel­ters more than 1000 refugees from mur­der­ous po­lit­i­cal ex­trem­ists. What fol­lows in this confronting true-life drama is a steep de­scent into “How could this have hap­pened?” hell. A con­science-prick­ing, com­pla­cency-kick­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Stars Don Chea­dle and So­phie Okonedo. Failed to pick up the three Os­cars it was nom­i­nated for, in­clud­ing Best Ac­tor for Chea­dle.